Top 10 benefits of learning a foreign language!

Learning a foreign language brings great advantage for studying in general and for career prospects abroad and locally! Acquiring a second language enables us to develop various mental abilities at all ages.

1. Make great friends

Friends find you closer! When you speak another language, especially a language that another person is familiar with or their mother tongue, your new friend will find you closer and opens up to you. You connect better!

You get to know people around the world! When you are in a group setting, you have new friends from around the world to share the learning of the new language with!

Learning a new language opens you up to appreciate one another’s culture, opinions and actions. You see the world from different viewpoints, enhancing your ability to communicate in a globally connected world today.

2. Bosses love it

When your resume includes competency of a second language, you stand a higher chance of employment in today’s society.

Multilingual people communicate and interact within multiple communities. Potential employers consider you a valuable asset when you are able to connect with a broader range of people. Companies are breaking into new markets. You enhance your personal and professional value if you are able to negotiate with manufacturers in another country or communicate with customers who don’t speak your native language.

3. It’s becoming essential

Bilingualism becomes increasing necessary and important to keep up with today’s growing global economy. As we shift towards a more connected global community, learning an additional language helps individual to build a more connected network

4. It’s great for traveling

Knowing another language opens up your vacation destination possibilities. Travelling becomes much easier without the hassle to translate. Locals also appreciate when foreigners speak bits of their language. It shows a greater level of respect and is an easy way to meet new people.

Obtaining a comfortable speaking level in a foreign language is a great motivator to travel to your desired destination and practise your newly-acquired language in a new country.

5. Improve the first language

Learning a new language makes you more conscious of your own language. Terms such as vocabulary, grammar, conjunction, comprehension, idioms and sentence structure become everyday phrases, whereas your own language is probably absorbed more intuitively. Learning a new language also makes you a better listener as you are used to having to interpret meaning and judge nuances.

6. Languages acquisition will become much easier

After learning the second language, you will discover the common techniques in learning language and you can apply them to additional languages learnt.

The positive cognitive effects of learning to speak a second language train the brain to analyze and process different linguistic structures. A skill mastered that can be applied to learning any language. After learning one language, you retain the muscle memory.

Your brain will intrinsically understand how to learn a language and how different languages are structured, through increased awareness of syntax, grammar and sentence structure.

7. You become sharper

The process of leaning a second language exercises your brain, challenges you to focus and enhances problem solving skills. Bilingual students tend to perform better in school than monolingual students especially in areas of vocabulary, reading and math.

Constantly switch from one language to another, you excel in multitasking. Bilingual individuals have also been shown to be more logical and rational, have better decision-making skills and be more perceptive and aware of their surroundings.

8. Alzheimer comes later

Research shows bilingual subjects experience the onset of Alzheimer on average, 4 1/2 years later than monolingual subjects did, which is regardless of their education level, gender or occupation,

Study result from American Academy of Neurology shows that speaking more than one language increases the number of neural pathways in the brain, allowing information to be processed through a great variety of channels. Multilingualism improves development in the brain’s areas of executive function and attention, no matter what age the language learner is.

9. It boosts your creativity

Multilingual speakers are more creative than monolingual speakers. Levelling your second language skills forces you to reach for alternate words when you can’t quite remember the original one you wanted to use. It improves your skills in divergent thinking, which is the ability to identify multiple solutions to a single problem.

10. It builds up your self-confidence

You’re about to teach yourself to believe, “yes, I can.” It’ll become your new personal mantra.

Confidence increases when a new skill is mastered, and learning a foreign language is no different. It increases your self-confidence. And let’s face it: confident people are more interesting than those who are unsure of themselves. The techniques you use to develop a second tongue result in a greater sense of open-mindedness.

In order to master a new language, conversations with native and fluent speakers are essential. If you’re shy but want to meet new people, using the excuse that you want to practice your speaking skills is a great opener and a doorway to making new friends, expanding your horizons and broadening your life experiences. Plus, who doesn’t want to be more interesting?